“We’re thinking we should stop and wait out the storm,” he announced, leaning out of his saddle and leaning close to be sure she heard.
Edith nodded with relief.
“We need to find high ground though, or someplace that’ll offer a bit o’ protection. Ye ken this area better than us, lass. Do ye know a likely spot?”
Biting her lip, Edith glanced around, searching for anything that might look familiar. The truth was while this was Drummond land, she didn’t often stray far from the castle. The loch and the meadow were as far as she usually went unless traveling to visit Saidh or Jo or something of that ilk, and she could count on one hand how many times she’d done that.
Unless she included childhood trips, Edith thought suddenly as her gaze landed on a tree ahead and to her right.
“The lodge!” she blurted with excitement.
“The lodge?” Niels asked.
Edith nodded with the first smile she’d managed since it had started to rain. “Ye see that tree there? The big one with carving on the trunk.”
Niels turned to look where she was pointing and then nodded. “Aye.”
“Me da did that years ago when we were children. He used to bring me, my mother and brothers out to the lodge a couple times a year when we were young,” she explained, shouting to be heard over the rain. “We were supposed to be hunting, but mostly we played games and had picnics and swam and such. He carved that on one o’ the trips. It means we’re close to the lodge.”
“Can ye find it?” Niels asked at once.
Edith peered at the tree for a moment and then nodded, “Aye, I think so.”
“Then lead the way and we can get in out o’ the rain,” Niels said with a smile.
“Aye.” Edith nodded, and then urged her horse forward, searching the ground for the path she recalled. It had been years since her father had brought them all out here, not since her mother died, and at first she worried the path might be completely gone by now. But after a surprisingly short search, a crow of triumph slid from her lips and she turned her mare onto the path. Someone had obviously been using the lodge for the path to still be there, Edith thought as she led the men into the trees. Probably one of her brothers. Both Roderick and Hamish had liked to hunt.
It took twenty minutes or so to reach the lodge. Edith didn’t remember it taking that long, so was starting to worry she’d followed the wrong path or something when the trees suddenly gave way to the clearing where the small stone building and stables were. Relief coursing through her, Edith steered her mare straight for the small stable, slowed her as they approached the closed door and then quickly slid off and rushed forward to open it herself rather than wait for one of the men to do it for her. She was so eager to get out of the cold, damp rain, that even the stables looked attractive to her at that point.
She eagerly pulled the door open, and then staggered back, bumping into someone as the stench of rotting meat rolled out over her.
“Edith, what—?” She heard Niels say as hands clasped her shoulders, and then he must have caught the scent that now had her covering her mouth with her hand and heaving. Cursing, her husband urged her away from the stable and toward the lodge, only to stop and lead her to a tree that would offer cover instead.
“’Tis okay. Ye can take yer hand away now. ’Tis better here,” Niels said.
Edith lowered her hand to take a cautious sniff and then sighed with relief and took several deep breaths to clear her nose and lungs and soothe her stomach. Once she was sure she wasn’t going to be sick, she glanced toward the stables and was just in time to see Geordie and Alick come out. Both had the cloth of their tartans over their faces, but their eyes were grim as they collected the reins of the horses and led them to the tree.
“What’d ye find?” Niels asked solemnly as he helped them tie the horses to a low branch in the tree they stood under.
“Dead horses,” Geordie said grimly. “Starved to death would be my guess. It looks like they tried to eat their stalls, or perhaps they were just trying to get out to find food.”
“How many?” Niels asked when Geordie paused.
“Seven in all.”
Edith stiffened and eyed him sharply. “Seven?”
“Aye.” Geordie nodded.
“Husband,” she said anxiously, grasping Niels’s arm. “Brodie took six men when he and Victoria left, and Lonnie was killed in the woods, his horse presumably stolen. Ye do no’ think . . . ?”
Mouth flattening, Niels urged her toward Alick. “Stay here with me brother, I’ll be right back.”
He turned to head for the lodge with Geordie on his heels. Edith bit her lip as she watched. She felt like she should be going with him too, but simply couldn’t bring herself to do it. Her mind was painting an image of what they would find inside and it wasn’t a pretty one. No man would willingly leave horses to starve to death, they depended on them too much. The owners certainly must be dead too, and had been for longer than the horses who had starved to death. If it was Brodie, Victoria and their escort . . .
Swallowing, Edith watched Niels open the door to the lodge. The way both men immediately jerked back and then drew a bit of tartan up to cover their noses and mouths before entering, told her there was definitely something dead inside.
Apparently, Alick thought so too, because he suddenly placed a supportive arm around her shoulders, and said, “It may no’ be yer brother and his wife.”
She knew he was trying to reassure her, but even he didn’t sound like he believed it, and Edith found herself unable to see through the sudden well of tears in her eyes. Dashing them away, she bit her lip and simply waited. It seemed a long time before the two men came back out. Geordie immediately walked off into the woods and she could hear his heaving even over the rain.
While Niels was as gray-faced as his brother, he went in the opposite direction. He walked straight to the well. He didn’t even have to draw water, the rainstorm had apparently left the bucket that sat on the well wall full of water. Niels dipped his hands in and appeared to be cleaning them. When he finished, he dumped the water on the ground and then walked over to the tree to join them.
“Is it them?” Edith asked quietly, already knowing the answer.
Niels opened his mouth, closed it and then sighed and admitted, “’Tis hard to tell. They’ve been dead awhile, but ’tis six men and a woman. The woman is wearing a gold gown.”
Edith frowned. “Victoria was wearing a gold gown when they left.”
Niels merely nodded, not seeming surprised, and then he held up his hand and said, “And the man beside her was wearing this.”
Edith glanced down at his hand when he held it out. For a moment she just stared at the gold ring resting on his palm. It was a man’s ring, gold with the Drummond family crest on it. It was the signet ring her father had worn up until the day he’d died. He’d pressed it into the wax on any messages he sent as proof they were from him. When he had died, Tormod had removed it and taken it to Roderick, and then he’d taken it to Hamish when Roderick died. The last she’d seen it Brodie had been wearing it as he left Drummond. He’d been wearing that ring, and Victoria had been riding beside him, her gold gown glowing in the sunlight.
It was them. The woman was Victoria, and the six dead men were Brodie and the five remaining men from his escort. She had now lost every last member of her family. She was alone, Edith realized dully and wondered where that high keening sound was coming from. She realized it was coming from her just before darkness closed in around her and she began to fall.
Cursing, Niels caught Edith before she could land in the mud, and then simply stood there, holding her and staring at her pale face, wondering what to do. They couldn’t stay here. Even did they drag the dead out of the lodge and put them in the stables until they could arrange to return them to Drummond, the smell in the lodge would be unbearable. Besides, he didn’t want Edith waking in the place where she knew her brother had taken his last breath.
“Do we ride on?” Alick asked hopefully as Geordie returned from the woods.
“Nay,” Niels said grimly, and then sighed miserably and turned to carry Edith to his mount.
“I’ll hold her while ye mount,” Geordie said quietly.
Nodding, Niels handed her over and put a foot in the stirrup.
“But where are we going?” Alick asked with a frown. “We can no’ take her back to Drummond. She’s no’ safe there.”
“Nay, she’s no’,” Geordie agreed solemnly, and then pointed out, “But she is the last o’ the old laird’s children. She’s now clan leader. She’d no’ thank us did she wake up to find we’d made her as much a coward as Brodie by taking her to safety at Buchanan and leaving her people unprotected.”
Niels’s mouth tightened as his brother put words to his own thoughts. Much as he’d like it otherwise, they would have to return to Drummond. And then they’d have to keep Edith safe while he smoked out the killer. He just hoped to God he could do it before the killer could finish what he’d started and kill the last of the Drummond clan, his wife.
“They’re lifting the gate.”